


But You Don't Have To Know

by Zee



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Deception, Future Fic, Identity Issues, M/M, Oikawa and Ushijima on the same team, Online Dating, Romantic Comedy, oikawa has great hair and loves lying, ushijima is too nice for the internet probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 07:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11331429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zee/pseuds/Zee
Summary: After much prodding and persuading from friends, Oikawa reluctantly tries online dating, and gets in his own way almost immediately.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cerasi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerasi/gifts).



> Written as a commission for cerasi, who is also responsible for coming up with the original idea. Cerasi I hope you like this, thank you so much for giving me the excuse to write it.

**My self-summary**

I am a third year university student and a wing spiker for my university volleyball team. I am very committed to my volleyball career and intend to play professionally. People who know me well tend to describe me as a serious, driven and kind person. 

**What I’m doing with my life**

My volleyball career is of the utmost importance to me. Aside from that, I enjoy running, cooking, taking care of and learning about plants, and socializing with my teammates. I find that city life is still something of an adjustment for me, so I try to get out of the city and travel to my family's home in Miyagi whenever I can.

**I’m really good at**

Spiking and receiving. I am also a strong runner, although this is mostly incidental. 

**The first things people usually notice about me**

My height. Sometimes people will notice that I am left-handed.

**Favorite books, movies, shows, music and food**

I do not care what books, movies or TV shows a prospective partner likes, and I don't see what difference my taste in media makes for our compatibility. Besides, I don't have time to read or watch TV or movies very often.

**Six things I could never do without**

Volleyball  
Running  
My university’s gardens  
Hayashi rice  
Dogs in general; my lifestyle may never permit me to care for one, but I enjoy meeting others

I am unable to think of a sixth thing without getting into universal physical necessities, such as oxygen etc. These would apply to all people and therefore I’d imagine they wouldn’t be of interest to anyone reading this.

**I spend a lot of time thinking about**

How to improve myself.

**On a typical Friday night I am**

Either at practice or playing a match. On occasion I will go out to a restaurant or bar with teammates after playing.

**You should message me if**

You are passionate and dedicated to your chosen career. Particularly if you play volleyball, I think we would have much to talk about.

***

Oikawa blamed Iwaizumi. He blamed Iwa-chan for many things, it was true, but this one was actually deserved. Before this semester, Iwaizumi hadn’t cared about Oikawa’s dating life, beyond making the occasional comment pointing out Oikawa’s lack of romantic or sexual experience whenever he tried to give advice on these subjects to his kohai. But other than cruelly undercutting Oikawa’s authority, he’d kept any opinions or observations about this (admittedly, somewhat neglected) element of Oikawa’s life to himself.

But then right before the start of their third year, Iwaizumi had gotten himself a boyfriend. And it turned out to be more than the short-lived, casual flings that Iwaizumi had had a few of since they started university. It was now November, and not only were they still together, they were making plans to get an apartment together in Tokyo after graduation. And when Oikawa had objected to this plan on the grounds that he and Iwaizumi had been planning to be roommates after university since _forever_ , Iwaizumi had begun this current, obnoxious and totally unfounded campaign to convince Oikawa that something was wrong with him because he’d never had a serious relationship.

All right, so he’d technically never said that something was wrong with Oikawa, but that was the logical extension of his argument. He claimed that Oikawa never “put himself out there” and that he “put up walls with everyone” and “was going to die a virgin if something doesn’t change.” 

“First of all, I’m not a virgin. Second of all, maybe I _want_ to die a virgin,” Oikawa said, folding his arms primly over his chest. The gesture made the gym bag on his shoulder swing awkwardly against his hip as they walked back to their dorm building from practice.

He was looking forward instead of at Iwaizumi, but he still felt the glare. “I’ve known you way too long and in that entire span of years I have never seen you make it all the way through a romantic movie without crying.”

“Shut up!”

“Or even through a drama episode without crying. Or even like, one scene where the couple gets--”

“Point made,” Oikawa said, loud over the noise of Tokyo traffic. A middle-aged woman next to them at the stoplight glanced up at him and then away, disinterested. Oikawa was keeping a blush away from his cheeks through sheer force of will.

“I’m just saying that I’m pretty sure you don’t _want_ to be alone,” Iwaizumi said, pitching his voice lower and closer to Oikawa’s shoulder. “You like the attention of all the girls in your fan club, right? But you never go out with them.”

“I tried that in high school, remember? Didn’t work.” Oikawa cleared his throat and beamed a winning smile at the old woman, but she was already crossing with the light. No one around them cared; the uncomfortable prickle of self-consciousness at the back of his neck had no purpose, and he knew that, knew it was a useless response but didn't know why he felt like this any time he had to think about possibly dating someone.

Iwaizumi stayed at his elbow as they crossed the street, sticking with the same subject like a dog worrying a bone. “Why would you think that romance is doomed to fail because of one girlfriend in high school? She didn't even date you for all that long.”

“So rude!”

“I'm just stating a fact. She probably wasn't the love of your life so why would you think the reasons that you guys broke up would be true for every other person on the planet?”

This, at least, Oikawa had a good answer for. “Volleyball--”

“You're not the only person in the world who is devoted to volleyball, dumbass.”

Oikawa made a face. “I can't date another volleyball player, can you even imagine?”

“Why not? Our teammates do it all the time.”

They were almost back to their dorm, where there would be even fewer distractions to keep Iwaizumi from pinning Oikawa with this topic like a helpless butterfly on a board. The nape of his neck was starting to sweat. “Yeah, well, I just can't picture it.”

“You just need to loosen up, be less freaked out by people.”

“I'm not _freaked out_ \--”

“You're freaked out by the idea of a girlfriend or boyfriend seeing you when you actually care about something, when you can't just put on a charming face and be, you know, fan club Shittykawa. Your team only gets to see you get all intense because you know we don't ask for more than you give on the court, and I get all your sides because you wanna keep all your emotional eggs in one basket.”

They'd reached the door to their dorm room. Oikawa had stopped walking. “Iwa-chan,” he said, his own voice far shakier than it had any right to be.

Iwaizumi was unlocking the door, tossing his gym bag in the living room and checking his phone. “I've gotta meet Kazu for dinner. Think about it, okay?”

Oikawa had managed to find some words again. “Just because you're in a relationship now doesn't mean you're at all wise.”

“Sure.” Iwaizumi clapped him on the shoulder on his way out, leaving Oikawa still standing there, staring at a spot on the hallway wall in front of him. 

***

One of the middle blockers had invited Oikawa and Iwaizumi to this party, and to Oikawa’s surprise, he found when they got there (along with Kazu, of course, because lately Iwaizumi didn’t want to go anywhere without him) that either no one else on the team had been invited, or none of them had showed up, because almost all of the other partiers were people he didn’t know. The middle blocker, Hirata, introduced him in glowing terms--”this is our amazing captain I’ve been telling you guys so much about!”--which put Oikawa in a relaxed, good mood. 

This turned out to be a mistake. The first sign of danger was Iwaizumi nudging him and giving him a meaningful look when they wound up alone in the kitchen. “Lots of people here, huh?”

Oikawa was already working on his third beer. “Yeah, who knew Hirata was so popular? I’m surprised that you haven’t run and hid by now, Iwa-chan, you’re not usually nearly this personable.”

Iwaizumi ignored the dig, which in retrospect was a clear sign that he was after something. “Do you think any of them are cute?”

“Oh, sure. That whole group of girls from the drama department is adorable! I need to ask that blonde one where she got her jacket…”

“I think she likes you, you should ask her out.”

“I--what? Oh my god, Iwa-chan, I can’t date an _actress._ I can’t date someone who’s going to be more dramatic than me!” 

“Ask out one of the other people here, then,” Iwaizumi continued, bull-headed, and finally alarm bells managed to penetrate the pleasant buzz of Oikawa’s inebriation. He stiffened and lowered his beer.

“Oh no. I see what you’re trying to do.” Oikawa shook his finger in Iwaizumi’s face and got a surly eye-roll in return. “This is not the time or the place for you to fix my love life!”

“You mean, lack of one,” Iwaizumi said, and Oikawa clutched at his chest in indignation.

“Dating someone has made you so cold, so rude! Does Kazu know how cold you are? Maybe he should be the one looking for someone else to date at this party.”

It didn’t even rate on the scale of meanest things Oikawa had ever said to Iwaizumi, but it was too much for this particular moment. Iwaizumi picked up on the resentful edge in his voice, because of course he did, and his face darkened.

“Try looking for another best friend, while you’re at it.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“No, but you’re being a dick right now. If you would just--”

They were interrupted by Hirata and a couple of his friends coming into the kitchen, laughing and wanting to talk as soon as they spotted Iwaizumi and Oikawa. Oikawa switched his focus to the new people, and if his sudden interest in them meant his back was now turned to Iwaizumi, well, probably only Iwaizumi would pick up on that being pointed.

Two drinks deeper into the party, Oikawa couldn't remember Iwaizumi being involved when the conversation turned to online dating--and, horrifyingly, Oikawa’s lack of experience with it--but it was inconceivable that this could have come up without him being somehow at fault. Everyone else seemed to think there was something minorly miraculous about Oikawa never having used Tinder or Okcupid, and once this fact stumbled into view, no one could let it go.

No one accepted Oikawa’s breezy explanation that he’d never used dating apps because he didn’t need them to meet people--he met more than enough people through his fan clubs, did they not realize what a drain it was to negotiate such a large group of people who adored him? Apparently they didn’t realize, or they didn’t care, and after some “good-natured” ribbing Oikawa found himself deposited on a couch with someone else’s phone left in his care, Tinder open, instructions to “just check it out, do some swiping, figure out how to use it so that you can do it on your own!”

“This is stupid,” Oikawa complained to a now-mostly-empty room. He didn’t even know whose phone this was--well, he knew him by sight, but he couldn’t remember the name. Some friend of Hirata’s who, naturally, had liked Oikawa immediately upon meeting him, but was choosing to show his affection by entrusting him with his Tinder profile, which was just…. bizarre. But it would be churlish of Oikawa to refuse to play along, and besides, maybe he was slightly curious about how all this worked.

Oikawa’s new friend’s Tinder was apparently set to show both men and women. It wasn’t a hard app to figure out, but he was drunk, and accidentally swiped left on four people in a row because he was trying to figure out how to zoom in on their pictures; it took him another ten swipes before he got the hang of viewing someone’s full profile and all their photos. The first time he swiped right on someone and got a match, he realized that this meant that all the others he’d swiped right on hadn’t liked him back, and was full of righteous indignation for a moment before remembering he was using someone else’s phone--of course these people would be swiping right on _Oikawa_ if they could just see his actual face.

Oikawa was starting to get bored, swiping left on routine, when his thumb froze and hovered over the screen. There was no mistaking this profile. The asshole had used a photo of himself from a volleyball magazine for his profile, so that Oikawa was presented with Ushijima mid-air, left hand raised, about to spike the ball over the net. Oikawa recognized this picture: it was from last year’s tournament, and at the time Oikawa had been outraged that the magazine had chosen a photo capturing one of the few sets delivered by the substitute setter, even though Oikawa had played most of the match. 

It was a terrible choice for a dating profile picture. Stupid Ushiwaka’s face was only visible in profile and the photo was taken from too far back to give a good idea of his features. You could see that he was fit and if you knew anything about volleyball, you could see that he was about to skillfully hit an imprecise and sloppily set ball (every single play Oikawa had orchestrated during that match would have made for a better photo op) in between two middle blockers. But you couldn’t tell anything about whether or not he was attractive. There was no way anyone who didn’t play volleyball would be swiping right on this picture.

When Oikawa clicked through, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Ushiwaka was in his volleyball uniform or their team jacket in every single picture. He was only smiling in one of them, and it was from high school, and Oikawa would bet money that his creepy redhead Shiratorizawa friend had taken it. 

But so much worse than the pictures was the minimal text of his profile, which simply stated his volleyball position and what team he played for, his height (asshole), a declaration that he believed in being respectful and decent, and some stupid emojis of dogs and plants. It was the least enticing thing Oikawa had ever seen. 

Oikawa’s burst of laughter was perhaps slightly louder and more hysterical than it would have been if he were sober, and it attracted the attention of the phone’s owner, who seemed alarmed by the fit of laughter and snatched his phone back over Oikawa’s protests. 

“You’re hooked that fast, huh?” Iwaizumi said, watching as Oikawa immediately dug his own phone from his pocket and went to install the app. 

“Shut up,” Oikawa snapped, not looking up. “I was in the middle of something.”

To Oikawa’s frustration, Ushijima’s profile did not immediately pop up when he finally got Tinder up and running. There didn’t seem to be any way to search for a specific profile, so he was stuck impatiently swiping left again and again, and after a while it became almost meditative. Oikawa’s mind began wandering, and he wondered if he would notice this particular repetitive thumb-swiping motion in others now, if this is what people were always doing in front of him in lines or while waiting at stoplights and he’d just never noticed before. 

He almost swiped left on Ushijima by accident when the right face finally populated his screen. But now he didn’t quite know what to do--if he wasn’t going to swipe left, then there was obviously only one other option, but--why? What was the point? The drive behind this was an all-consuming, not-sober desire to find out which way Ushijima had swiped on _him_ but why was that suddenly so important, anyway? 

Oikawa’s hesitation lasted all of a second and a half before his traitorous thumb was forging bravely ahead, swiping right. For a moment he was filled with rage, because nothing happened. But the app must have lagged, because ha! Here it was, the answer to his curiosity, a message popping up on the screen letting him know that he’d matched with Ushijima. 

Unfortunately Iwaizumi noticed when Oikawa pumped his fist in the air in victory, and came over to the couch to investigate. Oikawa quickly pocketed his phone, and looked up to give his sunniest smile as Iwaizumi stood over him, glowering and sipping suspiciously from his plastic cup of beer.

“What are you up to, asskawa?”

“You told me to try online dating, so I’m trying online dating! What, now you don’t want me to? Don’t you think that’s a bit hypocritical?”

Iwaizumi glanced down at the outline of Oikawa’s phone in his pants pocket, and his eyes narrowed as he swayed forward slightly. He was quite drunk, Oikawa realized--they were in the same boat there, but one issue in their friendship that had arisen since the start of university was that when Iwaizumi got drunk, his mother hen tendencies intensified, and when Oikawa was drunk his tolerance for that kind of corralling went down the toilet. It wasn’t a great combination, and Oikawa wasn’t in the mood for it right now.

“You look like you’re scheming.”

“I’m always scheming.” 

Iwaizumi’s frown deepend. “Well yeah, but you’re being more obvious about it than usual, which worries me.”

“If you’re so concerned, why don’t you just do Tinder for me?” Oikawa held out his phone with a sneer, and Iwaizumi rolled his eyes but reached to take it, and Oikawa remembered too late what was open on his screen. “Wait--”

He wasn’t fast enough to get his phone back before Iwaizumi saw that he’d matched with Ushiwaka. Oikawa cursed as Iwaizumi’s eyebrows rose and he brought the screen closer to his face. 

Oikawa didn’t know what kind of reaction he was expecting, but it wasn’t what he got. “Huh,” Iwaizumi said. Then, “He doesn’t really look much like this picture in person, does he?”

“Uh, what?” Without his phone to focus on, Oikawa’s lack of sobriety was threatening to catch up to him. He pressed the palm of his hand to the scratchy surface of the couch and sat up straighter, trying to see the phone screen.

Iwaizumi handed it back to him with a shrug. “He messaged you.”

_”What?”_

Oikawa managed to fumble his phone and drop it, like he’d stepped out of a drama episode or something, as Iwaizumi wandered away again. He picked it up off the floor with heat spreading over his cheeks and a buzzing sensation in his ears. There was a voice in the back of his mind chiding him for being ridiculous; it sounded like Iwaizumi; there was a second voice, marveling at the fact that Iwaizumi himself wasn’t sticking around to yell at him for being ridiculous, and wondering why. 

The message was polite and to-the-point. _Hello Oikawa. I know that some people consider it good manners to swipe right on anyone they know personally. I’m curious whether you and I matched tonight because you were being courteous, or because you are interested in dating._

Oikawa’s thoughts swam. He’d had his own Tinder account for all of fifteen minutes; for them to have already matched with each other, Ushijima must also be on his phone somewhere, swiping through profiles and thinking about dating. Jesus christ--Ushiwaka thinking about dating. Ushiwaka using _Tinder._ The surrealness of this whole encounter was catching up to Oikawa, and his thoughts seemed on track to swim right over a waterfall.

But no matter how deranged he was from alcohol, there was no way in hell Oikawa could ever give any response but this one: _Just a courtesy thing! I always swipe right on friends, nothing personal_

The reply came quickly. _Of course. Have a good night._

Oikawa found himself giggling, and covered his hand with his mouth. His stomach was starting to roll unpleasantly and his cheeks were still hot. He looked up to see that Iwaizumi was back, along with Hirata and the friend who had first loaned Oikawa his phone

“Time to get you home,” Iwaizumi said, and Oikawa wanted to snap at him for being pushy, but he also felt very ready to go home. What had just happened? Tinder was bizarre.

As they walked out of the apartment building, the crowded and smoggy Tokyo air felt like a rush of good luck. Oikawa laughed again, ignoring Iwaizumi’s weird look. 

“You already like Tinder that much, huh?”

“What? It was just a good party.”

Iwaizumi didn’t contradict him. They walked in the direction of their dormitory in silence for a couple of blocks, and then Iwaizumi said, “So what did you and Ushiwaka talk about?”

Now the outside air just felt too cold and sobering. “Nothing! We didn’t talk! It was one message!”

“Okay fine, what was the one message about?”

Oikawa looked away from Iwaizumi’s irritated glare. “He…” Words floated away from him and then back again. “He was just saying hello. He swipes right on anyone he already knows, as just like a friendly thing.”

“Really? Tinder swiping on your friends?” Iwaizumi frowned. “I don’t think that’s a thing.”

“Who cares.” Oikawa sniffed. “We’re not friends, anyway. He’s just a teammate. Acquaintance. Whatever.”

“Potential Tinder date?”

“What? Iwa-chan!” Oikawa stopped walking, staring at Iwaizumi in outraged horror. Iwaizumi just looked back at him with a smirk.

“I’m going to throw up,” Oikawa declared, letting his shaky legs swerve off the sidewalk and into some hedges lining the edge of campus. He wasn’t actually drunk enough to puke, so he just kneeled down and coughed and let his head loll while Iwaizumi laughed at him, told him he was just being dramatic, then helped him to his feet.

***

Their regular season did not start up again for another two weeks. Oikawa hadn't seen much of Ushijima over this semester’s break; he and Iwaizumi had stuck around in Tokyo, taking student jobs and training with each other and occasionally other teammates, while Ushijima had been invited to a volleyball camp, then gone back to Miyagi for the rest of the summer. Oikawa hadn't actually realized he was back in the city until he'd shown up on Tinder.

Despite his initial, drunken enthusiasm for swiping through profiles, Oikawa avoided using Tinder with any seriousness. He still used the app and swiped through people, but it felt more like morbid curiosity than anything else. The people with attractive pictures seemed to universally have something weird or off-putting in their profiles, or they didn’t have any information in their profiles at all, which just seemed suspicious. 

On the rare occasion that he swiped right on someone and it turned out to be a match, Oikawa found himself staring at the app’s stupid little phrases encouraging him to send a message and then putting his phone away. The thought of initiating a conversation with someone was…. uncomfortable, and he didn’t feel like examining why. And no one else was making the first move with him--very much to Oikawa’s chagrin, so far Ushijima was the only match to have said anything to him.

He occasionally found himself going back to that conversation, rereading the brief exchange, thumb hovering over the keyboard. It was just weird, that was all. Weird of Ushijima to swipe right on him and to message him, and weird that Oikawa had been seized with the urge to mess with Ushijima’s profile at that party in the first place. He couldn’t remember what he’d been thinking, what his internal logic had been for why he’d wanted so badly to see if they matched.

Every time he reread their exchange he felt uneasy. He wished he could have discerned how Ushijima had swiped on him without swiping left or right on his profile in return. He didn’t like feeling exposed like this, even if Ushijima had given him the out of claiming that he swiped right on anyone he already knew.

He felt so weird about their Tinder interaction that he expected Ushijima to be weird when he started seeing him around at the volleyball gym again, but Ushijima was--well, not normal, but no more weird and awkward than usual. He didn’t bring up the subject of online dating around Oikawa, didn’t mention their exchange. He didn’t stare without smiling or ignore basic conversational questions to respond instead with brusque critiques of someone’s volleyball technique about any more than usual.

He gave no indication that he’d thought about their messages once since Oikawa had declared his lack of interest, which was annoying because Oikawa had thought about it…. more than once.

A week into their regular practices, Oikawa found himself home alone on a Friday night. Iwaizumi was out with Kazu and Oikawa hadn’t bothered to make other plans, thinking he’d be too exhausted from the week, but instead he found himself restless. There was beer in the fridge and no one around to talk to and, well.

OkCupid profiles were much more extensive than Tinder. Oikawa found himself stuck on the very first question, not sure how to sum up his life in an introductory paragraph. Listing his favorite movies and books was a little easier, but made him feel self-conscious, and didn’t seem all that important--who would be looking at his opinions on movies to make a decision about whether or not they wanted to ask him out?

He wasn’t satisfied with anything he managed to write about himself and left most of it unfinished, figuring he’d come back to it later when inspiration struck. He moved on to browsing his matches, and surely this was someone’s idea of a vicious practical joke, because Ushijima was almost the first person to come up. 

Reading it, Oikawa wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. What a ridiculous person! His arrogance practically dripped off the screen, and he was so _boring._ Who on earth would read this profile and be interested in going out with the person behind it?

And Ushijima, whose standards were so insanely high for everything he touched. If some random person on this website actually was interested in him, what would they have to be like in order for him to reciprocate?

Oikawa was already signing out of his preliminary account and registering with a different email address. Somehow it was much easier to create this fake profile, making himself laugh by thinking up all these sanctimonious and virtuous traits that Ushiwaka was probably looking for in a partner, than it was to finish his own profile. Iwaizumi would probably have something to say about that if he were here, but of course he wasn’t. 

He should have at least hesitated and briefly contemplated the ethics and/or purpose of what he was doing before messaging Ushijima, and he might have if he'd been 100% sober or if Iwaizumi had been home. As it was, urgency thrummed just under his skin, like he couldn't finish the profile fast enough, answering just enough questions in the most boring manner possible to ensure a high match with Ushijima. He was successful, of course: 97% Match, a triumph, he'd created the ultimate boring boyfriend for the ultimate boring person. Oikawa's pulse beat in triple time as he fired off an introductory message, and if some part of him noted that the only time he felt like this was on the court, he didn't dwell on it.

Ushijima's reply came within five minutes. He was just as polite and respectful as he'd been with Oikawa on Tinder. He answered Oikawa's question about his favorite plants, then took the bait that Oikawa had included in his profile, but slyly hadn't alluded to in his initial message: Ushijima asked him what volleyball position he played.

This had been tricky, because of course Ushijima would be as familiar as Oikawa was with all the notable college players in their region, and even if Oikawa created a character who wasn't on the starting line, Ushijima might still google that university's roster (although possibly he was too simple-minded to be that investigative). Besides, there was no way Ushijima would consider himself well matched with a bench warmer.

So Oikawa's character had gone to university in Beijing, graduated last year, and was now in Tokyo to further his volleyball career. Oikawa figured that would be enough of a hook to satisfy Ushiwaka that his match was talented and dedicated to their shared sport, and besides, how funny would it be to find out that Ushi had a thing for guys older than him?

Oikawa replied to the message saying that he was the ace, a wing spiker. He hoped that they would continue talking about volleyball. He wanted to see how Ushijima would react when Oikawa started ranting about how his last team’s setter had been too independent and selfish and hadn’t served his (the ace’s) needs the way a setter properly should. 

_I am the ace for my team as well. What an interesting connection for us to share. Are you also your team’s captain?_

Oikawa glared at the screen. Typical Ushiwaka, assuming that the ace would also be the captain, _even though_ Oikawa was the captain of the team they both currently played for. 

_No actually, my setter is our captain._ This was a slight risk: would Ushijima find the coincidence of both of them playing for setter captains to be suspicious? Oikawa was counting on him being too wooden and stupid to think twice about it, but his teeth dug into his bottom lip and his shoulders remained tense until Ushijima’s reply popped up on his phone.

_It is the same for my team. I would prefer to be our captain, since I enjoyed fulfilling that role for my high school team. But we are still one of the best teams in the prefecture under our current captain’s leadership. Is your setter a good one? Does he work well with your spiking style?_

For a few moments Oikawa was too surprised to be angry, and then the anger bloomed in every blood vessel, turning his cheeks hot and making his fingertips buzz. Ushijima had never told him to his face that he would prefer to be captain, not in so many words. It was a shock to just see him come out and say it, like it was a preference he was sure of, a solid fact about himself that he found easy to share with new people. So blunt. 

Oikawa could picture him saying the words, could almost see Ushiwaka calmly meeting Oikawa’s eyes right here in his own damn living room and telling him that he wanted to be captain, that he thought it would be better for the whole team if he were captain instead of Oikawa. He’d probably say it in the same calm, robotic way that he said all hurtful things, like he didn’t know they could be hurtful so this should, somehow, absolve him of any responsibility for the hurt.

It took Oikawa’s breath away. He almost forgot that he was supposed to be talking as someone else but caught himself before he’d typed out more than two angry words. He deleted that beginning and squeezed his eyes shut, breathed, considered what to say next.

Really, he was getting what he wanted, if he’d given this whole charade enough thought to have a clear vision of what he wanted in the first place. Oikawa was able to learn Ushijima’s opinions about their team, and about Oikawa, without opening himself up to questions in return. Oikawa could recognize now that this was the desire that had spurred this whole process, and as his anger began to clear he realized he was in quite the ideal position to lead this conversation into further illuminating places.

He still wanted to know what Ushijima might say about him when he didn’t know Oikawa was listening, even if he didn’t like what he found out. 

He switched tactics for what he’d say about his fake team’s setter. _Our setter is good because he has adapted his style to serve me best. He recognized that a more independent setting style wouldn’t play to the strengths of his team, so he worked hard to change the way he played to suit me. Now we work very well together._

_That’s interesting. I played with a setter like that in high school. We worked well together, too._

_How about your setter now?_

Long minutes passed before any response, and Oikawa wondered why. Was it because Ushiwaka was trying to figure out how to be tactful for once in his life? Or was he getting suspicious about this line of conversation? Or perhaps some distraction had just pulled him away.

_My setter now has not changed the way he plays to serve the ace. He is the captain, so it is not his style to be subservient or changeable. He has his own way of doing things which sometimes clashes with mine. It’s complicated._

Now this, this was very interesting. So ‘complicated’ was the word Ushijima would choose to describe their relationship. Oikawa didn’t really see it that way. There was nothing particularly complex about hating someone’s guts, even if two years of playing together might make him grudgingly admit that Ushiwaka could be an asset as a player.

_How is it complicated?_

Another long pause. Oikawa caught himself licking his lips. He closed his eyes, took a breath, placed his phone deliberately on the table and got up to get another beer and take a piss. When he came back, there was a reply.

_We were rivals in high school. I admired his skills and always thought he would do well on my team, but he resented me. Now that we are on the same team I can see that I was right to admire his skills. We have excelled together, but the resentment is still there and means that we don’t always play as smoothly together as I think we could._

Before Oikawa could finish sneering at this version of their history that absolved Ushijima of any wrongdoing and lay all the blame on Oikawa, another reply came.

_I apologize if I am talking too much about myself and a team you do not know. I’m sure you don’t want to hear any more about our setter. How have you been liking Tokyo so far?_

The conversation moved from volleyball to other things. Oikawa remained in-character as someone who matched Ushijima’s every interest and stated desires in a partner. He enjoyed identifying plants, liked dogs, believed in keeping a tidy and well-kept home, did not believe in drinking to excess and found deep satisfaction in maintaining healthy routines. He cared about his volleyball career above all else, and was looking for a partner that would both support that ambition while being career-oriented himself.

Ushijima expressed agreement with all of this, of course, but when Oikawa remarked on how nice it was to talk to someone with whom he had so much in common, the pause before Ushijima’s next reply was the longest yet. 

_It does seem like we have a lot in common and I’ve enjoyed talking with you. But I should be honest, I don’t see things going any further between us. It’s not the right time for me to start anything with someone new. I hope you have a good night._

And once again, Oikawa was left staring open-mouthed at his phone screen, surprised at Ushijima and very, very surprised that Ushijima could be surprising at all. He had expected Ushijima to agree that it was nice to talk to someone so much like him, and then perhaps to ask Oikawa’s character out, at which point Oikawa would have had to come up with some excuse for why he couldn’t meet in person that wouldn’t break Ushijima’s heart _too_ much, considering Oikawa needed his wing spiker functional for the season ahead. 

He hadn’t expected Ushijima’s lack of interest. ‘Not the right time’? What bullshit. If it wasn’t the right time for Ushijima to date anyone, why had OkCupid shown that his account was online before Oikawa had even messaged him? And Ushijima was so practical-minded, so pragmatic, if he had the goal of finding a romantic partner then how could he pass on the opportunity to date someone who would be the perfect partner for him?

It didn’t make any sense. It didn’t match with the boring, predictable Ushiwaka that Oikawa had played beside since the start of university. 

When Iwaizumi came home in the morning, Oikawa was still bothered by it, frowning over his morning tea and barely glancing up as Iwaizumi tossed his keys onto the table and sat down heavily across the table from him. When Iwaizumi asked him how his night had been, Oikawa looked up, blinking.

“My night was all right,” Oikawa said, the words coming slow as he caught up with the present moment. Iwaizumi’s eyebrows rose and he leaned forward, waiting. Oikawa could pretend he had nothing to tell, could keep this secret, but Iwaizumi would know that he was holding back.

In the harsh light of morning, Oikawa was beginning to realize that the prank he’d pulled might seem to others like it was mean, cold, or manipulative. Perhaps even bordering on sociopathic. Perhaps he’d tell Iwaizumi of his misdeeds and Iwaizumi would denounce him forever as a horrible monster.

Oikawa’s feelings of dread proved somewhat correct, as when he got to the part about creating a fake account to perfectly match with Ushiwaka, Iwaizumi groaned theatrically and put his head in his hands and didn’t look up for the rest of the story. When Oikawa haltingly finished explaining how all this had ended with Ushiwaka politely rejecting the fake love interest Oikawa had created, Iwaizumi looked up and reached forward and smacked Oikawa upside the head.

It was, at least, gentler than it would have been in high school. 

“You catfished him, you asshole!”

“I didn’t--”

“This is _exactly what catfishing is._ Man, I don’t get why you even bothered, why did you care about messaging him? You didn’t want to talk to him on Tinder that one time.”

“I still don’t want to talk to him, I hate him,” Oikawa said sharply. “And I don’t know, I was drunk and I thought it might be funny. Then I realized I could get him to talk about him or the team and, well, maybe it escalated.”

Iwaizumi fixed him with a very dirty, deeply disapproving look. “That’s a pretty shitty thing to do, even to someone you hate. Ushiwaka’s our teammate and he doesn’t deserve to be led on like that.”

Oikawa let his gaze slide to the left, avoiding eye contact, avoiding stupid Iwa-chan being right. “I know that. It was just--I don’t know. It’s not like I set up a date just to stand him up. He’ll never find out.”

“Seriously though, why’d you do it? If you were feeling curious about OkCupid then why not make your own profile?”

“I already told you, I don’t know! I don’t even know if I’ll make a real profile of my own, that site seems pretty stupid.” 

Iwaizumi rubbed his palms over his face and sighed, standing up and heading to the kitchen. He kept grumping to Oikawa over his shoulder as he put hot water on for tea, but Oikawa leaned back in his chair and let his attention wander. It was beautiful outside; today was supposed to be his rest day, but a short run probably couldn’t hurt.

He remembered Ushijima telling him last night about his belief that rigorous exercise was good for the mind and soul, not just for the body. Who knew that Ushiwaka ever thought about his mind and soul?

***

The next night Oikawa couldn’t sleep, even though practice that evening had been brutal and he’d stayed an extra 45 minutes afterward to help a first-year practice his blocks. His body had no energy left but his thoughts itched, restlessness pushing at his temples even though no one issue in particular was bothering him. 

The idea came to him while he was idly messing around on his phone, judging people’s instagram photos and swiping left on tinder. He hadn’t even been thinking about Ushijima, not really, and he certainly wasn’t thinking about messing with him again. But then it came to him that perhaps his strategy with that first profile had been all wrong: maybe the perfect partner in Ushijima’s mind was not a fellow ace, not someone who could compete at his level and match his strength. Maybe what he really wanted was a fan, a sycophant who could stroke his ego by caring deeply about his volleyball career and cheering him on without ever threatening to surpass him in skill. 

He couldn’t resist trying again. It didn’t take him long to create another profile, which was good, because it was past midnight and he really should be getting to sleep soon. This person had fallen in love with volleyball when he’d stumbled into being the manager for his high school team, but had never pursued the sport seriously for himself partly because he was not blessed with natural height or great athletic skill, and partly because by the time he was a teenager, he was already very committed to a time-consuming pre-med path. 

To Oikawa’s disappointment, Ushijima didn’t respond immediately this time. Then he remembered how late it was, and of course responsible Ushijima who kept so faithfully to a healthy sleep schedule would be asleep right now, and he felt foolish. 

But there was a reply when he woke up in the morning. Just as he’d been with the previous person, Ushijima seemed polite, open, interested in talking more. Oikawa messaged back and forth with him throughout the day, between his classes and during his coffee and study breaks. When he was walking from his last class to practice with Iwaizumi, his attention split between his phone and whatever it was Iwaizumi was bitching about, Iwaizumi jostled him with an elbow and barked out, ”What’s got you grinning like that?”

“None of your business!” Oikawa stuck his tongue out and slipped his phone back in his jacket pocket. As they rounded the corner to the gymnasium, he could see Ushijima walking towards their same destination. He was also looking at his phone, and he was also smiling.

But when their conversation had progressed to the point that Oikawa’s character was telling Ushijima how admirable he seemed and how they must be a perfect match for each other, Ushijima’s response was almost word-for-word the same one he’d given to Oikawa’s previous fake profile: he had enjoyed their conversation, but he didn’t see things going any further than this. He didn’t repeat the line about now not being the right time, but he did say that he needed to put all his efforts into his training this season.

***

The next day during practice, Oikawa fell in step beside Ushijima while the team was jogging. If Ushijima was surprised that Oikawa was seeking him out for a chat, he didn’t show it, nor did he seem confused when Oikawa steered the conversation towards time management.

“It can be difficult when you’re a student to balance volleyball, your studies, and then a social life on top of that,” Oikawa said. “Particularly if you’re trying to date people, too! There are times when I’m tempted to just give up and wait until I’m out of university. How about you, Ushiwaka? Have you decided that now’s just not the right time for dating?”

Ushijima gave no sign that he’d noticed his own phrasing being tossed back to him. He kept his eyes on the road in front of them and didn’t even sound out of breath when he answered. “I might not have much time for dating, but I’ve found it is still worth it to try and meet new people. I was dating someone for most of last semester. If you like someone enough, you can always make time.”

Oikawa nearly tripped. “You were?! I mean, ah, yes, that’s a good point about making time.” He wanted to run on ahead and away from this conversation very badly now, but if he fled the moment Ushiwaka told him about a past fling, it would look weird. Who knows what wrongheaded conclusion Ushijima might take from that. 

“Maybe someday my volleyball career will truly require all my time, in which case I will give up my other interests and social life. But the last time I spoke with my father he told me to take advantage of my university days and try to spend time with people, because other life situations in my future will be more isolated. I think that was good advice.”

“Ah,” Oikawa said vaguely. He bent his head, shaking droplets of sweat from the sweep of his hair to the sidewalk. Iwaizumi had said suspiciously similar things to him before, while nagging Oikawa to put himself out there and date more. It annoyed Oikawa, that Ushijima was saying thoughtful things that actually made sense.

“And the guy you dated last semester? Did he have a similar outlook?”

“Yes. He also had obligations outside of his studies, but we were able to find time to see each other.”

“Why did it end then?” Oikawa tried too late to swallow back the sharpness in his voice; he hadn’t wanted to reveal how much it rankled to know that Ushijima had apparently been successfully dating people this whole time when Oikawa was on track to get through his university career with no one in his past and no one on the horizon.

“He graduated and moved to Hong Kong for a job.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Oikawa said, with very little feeling. “How’d you meet him?”

“OkCupid.”

“Oh, really.” Oikawa was thankful that they were both out-of-breath from jogging uphill, as it somewhat disguised the bitterness in his voice. So Ushijima had definitely, unequivocally had more success than him when it came to online dating. How wonderful.

And Ushijima's line about this not being the right time had just been him trying to be polite when rejecting Oikawa (well, rejecting Oikawa's fictional people). He hadn't been interested in them, despite the fact that Oikawa had chosen pictures of attractive men and had engineered match percentages over 95% in each case. And Ushijima clearly didn't reject everybody, considering his recent boyfriend and outgoing philosophy.

Oikawa had to keep trying. Well--he didn’t _have to_ and definitely shouldn’t, but he felt driven forward by something beyond his control, something that animated his inner clockwork and set him on a course of action while neatly bypassing any mental or emotional facility to question or hesitate. The same force had propelled him to spend hours and hours practicing his serves in junior high, had caused him to lose sleep too many nights in a row while watching tapes of other teams’ games when he was at Seijoh. Oikawa had never even tried to fight back against this kind of compulsive drive, so he didn’t fight it now.

***

Considering the effort he poured into being the team’s captain and the necessities of his college classes, Oikawa was not overburdened with free time. But thankfully chatting on OkCupid was something that could be done anywhere: idly in line at the campus cafe, standing around waiting for Iwaizumi to meet him after a class, waiting for hot water to boil for tea. Creating each new profile was more time intensive and Oikawa liked to be on his laptop for that, and sometimes alcohol helped, too, so it was more of an evening activity. 

He talked to Ushijima as someone who knew nothing about volleyball but was eager to have the whole sport explained to him; he talked to Ushijima as a setter, a middle blocker, and a team captain; he talked to Ushijima as the coach of a kids’ volleyball team. He talked to Ushijima as another left-handed spiker. Each time delivered similar results. Ushijima would seem interested at first, would reply promptly and ask questions and carry on a friendly conversation, and then came the inevitable polite rejection. Ushijima never rejected him by simply ceasing to reply to the conversation thread, which somehow added insult to injury.

He sometimes varied his answers to OkCupid’s questions, but not so much that his match percentage with Ushijima dropped below 90%. And he usually worked a few details into his profile that Ushijima said he was looking for in a partner. He switched up the photos he pulled from, trying out different kinds of faces and even experimenting with foreigners (a Korean, an American, a Brazilian). But all his fake people still wound up dead in the water. 

One Friday Ushijima invited Oikawa and the other third years on the team out to the bars with him and some of his former teammates from Shiratorizawa. Apparently several of them had converged on Ushijima for the weekend, which was rare considering that not all of them went to school in Tokyo. 

Oikawa didn't feel especially enthusiastic about the prospect of hanging out with former Shiratorizawa students, but he also felt like he couldn't say no without being rude; three years into being Ushijima's teammate, and Oikawa could count on one hand the number of times he'd initiated anything social with his teammates. But he always went out with them when other teammates invited him, and he was always one of the last people to leave a party or a bar, so Oikawa suspected that he wasn't antisocial, but rather shy about initiating.

Besides, it would be very like Ushijima to really care about his former teammates meeting and getting along with his current team. Oikawa felt somewhat obligated as their team's captain, even if Ushijima would prefer that he wasn't.

Iwaizumi came along, but disappeared into some dark corner (or perhaps left the gathering altogether) with Kazu less than an hour into the party. Typical. Oikawa was left alone at the bar, trying not to sulk or at least to not appear to be sulking. That was how Tendou found him.

Tendou was friendly at first and he made Oikawa laugh, and asked all sorts of smart questions about the team and Oikawa’s university career thus far. Then the questions petered out and the conversation lapsed into silence. Oikawa leaned back against the bar, considering joining a circle of his fellow third year university students, although the former Shiratorizawa setter--Shirabu, Oikawa thought, they'd been reintroduced at some point tonight--was also talking with them and Oikawa didn't know him that well, wasn't sure how that might go. Tendou had pulled out his phone, and when Oikawa glanced over he saw that he was swiping through Tinder.

The fact that Oikawa didn't know Tendou well was not enough to prevent him from giving his opinion and being nosy. He leaned in closer and spoke over Tendou's shoulder, "Definitely swipe left on that one."

Tendou laughed and swiped left without questioning the suggestion. “And him?”

“Left! You don’t want those jorts.” 

“Fair enough.” 

Tendou swiped left and right on a few more faces, gamely following Oikawa’s guidance, before laughing and slipping his phone back into his pocket. “Ah, online dating. What a strange way to try and find someone you want to spend your time with! It can feel so daunting, right?”

Oikawa should have been immediately suspicious, but he’d been lulled into a false sense of security by the combination of beer and the satisfaction of getting to control someone else’s actions. “Mm, it’s hard out there.”

“It is! Especially when you can never be sure if people are being honest with you.”

This was pointed enough that even slightly drunk, Oikawa’s alarm bells went off. But before he could steer the topic away or just leave, Tendou continued. “I was talking about that with Wakatoshi the other day. He mentioned how many guys have started conversations with him recently, most of them being really persistent about it. I asked if I could see his messages and they raised some red flags, so I reverse googled the images. And how crazy is this, Wakatoshi has been targeted by fake accounts six different times this semester!”

Something in Oikawa’s chest twinged uncomfortably at the word ‘targeted.’ It wasn’t like that, he wanted to say. Instead he took another sip from his beer bottle, even though it was mostly empty. “Is that right.”

“Yeah! Why Wakatoshi, of all people? A lot of the messages from the fake people seemed to be about volleyball, so maybe it’s a fan of his that just kind of went off the rails. But I don’t think it was some crazy obsessed person, the messages were too well written for that.” Tendou talked a lot with his hands and with his expressive face, his eyes widening then narrowing and a smirk playing on the corner of his lips. Oikawa wondered how much of his erratic body language was genuine and how much of it was purposeful, trying to keep Oikawa off-balance until he went in for the kill. 

Oikawa wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking the question he was waiting for: had Tendou told Ushijima that all those messages weren’t real? He turned to face the bar, trying to catch the bartender’s eye for a third beer. “Ushijima is not the kind of star athlete who might make a fan crazy or obsessed. I’m sure his fan club, such as it is, gets together on weekends to plant vegetables and discuss finances.”

“Huh, has Wakatoshi discussed his plant hobby with you that much? Funny that you associate him with that.” Oikawa blushed, dammit he really needed another full drink to hold on to. He hadn’t known how much Ushijima liked plants and gardening before finding his dating profile. Tendou was just fucking with him now. “Anyway, I don’t actually think it’s a fan who’s gone off the deep end. All of the fake personalities were pretty different, but none of them got extra creepy or tried to bother Wakatoshi after he turned them down. I think it’s someone totally sane who knows what they’re doing. Someone smart.”

Oikawa swallowed. He wouldn’t ask.

Now Tendou was leaning back too, his elbows on the bar and his bony ribcage arching out towards the rest of the bar, his chin jutting in the direction of a circle of people talking that included Ushijima. “But! As far as I could tell, they weren’t looking for secrets to defeat your team or trying to hack him or mess with his head or anything. And it’s not like he ever took the bait and tried to date any of the fake people, so what would the point be of telling him they were fake? It would just confuse him. Wakatoshi has never considered before that someone might possibly lie to him on the internet.”

“So you haven’t told him.” The words spilled out of Oikawa too fast, a mistake, and he cursed himself as Tendou twisted to look at him with a leer. 

“Not yet! I suppose I still might. I’m kind of curious to see what this mystery person does next.” Tendou hummed a little, then drummed his fingertips against his chin like he was thinking. “But what are they after if they’re not trying to scam him for money? Judging from the messages I read, it seems like it was someone who wants to get closer to Wakatoshi, but without having to reveal themselves. Someone who doesn’t want Wakatoshi to know about their crush on him. I wonder if it’s someone Wakatoshi might already know?”

Oikawa felt his lips stretch into a smile, too sharp, and when he spoke he could feel each angry word deep in his chest. “What a detective you are! For all your confidence in reading motives and analyzing personalities, I’m surprised you’re not more of a people person. Why aren’t you more popular, I wonder?”

Tendou grinned wide at the insult. “I don’t know! Social behaviors are always so interesting and unpredictable. For instance, you could also ask the question of why do some really popular people never have boyfriends?”

Oikawa needed to be done with this conversation. He gave up on the hope of ordering another beer and gave Tendou a sarcastic finger-wave as he walked away, his blood thudding loud and heavy in his ears.

So Tendou suspected Oikawa of being the one behind Ushijima’s fake suitors, but he hadn’t given him away. He could still decide to tell, of course. And he probably would if Oikawa continued to do what he’d been doing. Oikawa hated knowing that someone had something over him like that, and it was made worse by the fact that he had no one else to blame for being in this position. He’d gone down this road in secret and completely of his own volition, and he didn’t even really understand why. 

It had started as a joke, hadn’t it? But was it still a joke? Was Oikawa enough of a monster to keep leading someone on, over and over again under a different name each time, just because it was funny to see how the other person reacted? He’d never thought of it that way before--he hadn’t been letting himself think much at all, throughout this whole thing. But the way Tendou had talked, like he had to consider whether or not the person on the other end of the messages actively meant Ushijima harm, made shame and guilt settle deep in the pit of his stomach.

And then there were all the other things Tendou had said, all the irritating poison he’d tried to pour in Oikawa’s ears. Suggesting that the mystery person wanted to get ‘close’ to Ushijima, suggesting that they must have a crush on Ushijima. Now that was just a ridiculous assumption that Tendou had absolutely no basis for making. Just because Oikawa had created six different fake OkCupid matches in an attempt to get Ushijima to ask him out did not mean he had a _crush._

A cool breeze hit his hot cheeks, and Oikawa realized that he’d walked all the way outside the bar door. He couldn’t just leave, he hadn’t paid his tab, so he leaned against the glass windows at the front, trying to look like he was considering a cigarette. He heard a voice say his name, and damn, of course it would be Ushiwaka. 

“I wasn’t leaving,” Oikawa said. “I just needed some air.”

Ushijima nodded and came to stand next to him. His hands were in the pockets of his slacks and he was looking out at the city, his face in profile. He looked relaxed. He looked good. 

“Thank you for coming out tonight. I am glad you’ve been able to meet some of my friends from Shiratorizawa. I thought you would probably get along with them if given the chance.”

He must have noticed Oikawa and Tendou talking, and thought it meant they were getting along. Oikawa had to turn away, biting his lip against a sarcastic grin. “Oh, yes. They all seem very nice.”

If Ushijima heard the bitterness, he didn’t respond to it. Oikawa felt a light touch on his elbow and looked up in surprise. Ushijima’s head was bowed and he directed his words at the pavement, but he didn’t move his hand away from Oikawa’s arm.

“I wasn’t just proud of Shiratorizawa because I thought we were the best. I cared about them and relied on them, just as you did with Aoba Josai.”

Oikawa was not ready to have this conversation. He stepped away from Ushijima’s touch and said breezily, “Oh, of course. I figured that you did. I don’t actually think you’re a robot, Ushiwaka.”

Oikawa didn’t know whether it was obliviousness or deliberate choice, but Ushijima ignored Oikawa’s attempt to lighten things up. His eyes bore into Oikawa, until Oikawa gave up on trying to find somewhere else to look and met his eyes helplessly. 

“I wanted you to be a part of it, back then. Part of my group, instead of us competing like we always had. It wasn’t just about the path to victory.”

Ushijima hadn’t tried to discuss this old high school argument since their first year of university, when Oikawa had resorted to leaving the room every time Ushijima brought it up. Oikawa supposed that the presence of his Shiratorizawa friends was making him sentimental, making him go back to old differences which were better left behind.

There was something scratchy in Oikawa’s throat, making it difficult to get words out. “We’re on the same team now. You got your wish.”

Ushijima shook his head, a gesture which made his hair flop over his forehead. “You don’t understand.”

Oikawa wasn’t sure he wanted to understand. He felt like running in the opposite direction from any kind of understanding. Panic had taken root in his chest and it wanted to bloom. Ushijima would keep talking this through if Oikawa let him: would touch Oikawa again and keep explaining, keep trying to make Oikawa understand, keep trying for a closeness between them. He would keep talking until he got to making some kind of confession of--something. 

And he had no idea how ludicrously brave he was being right now, braver than Oikawa could ever hope to be. He’d been brave from that first message he’d sent Oikawa on Tinder, and Oikawa had been a manipulative coward since the exact same moment.

Ushijima wouldn’t be standing here and looking at Oikawa like this if he knew what kind of person Oikawa really was. 

“Let’s go back inside,” Oikawa said, and if it came out as a desperate plea, maybe Ushijima wouldn’t pick up on that; there were so many things Ushijima didn’t pick up on, so many things that went over his head because he was a direct and honest person, decent in a fundamental way that Oikawa had tried not to acknowledge for years now. 

Iwaizumi reappeared with a smiling and tipsy Kazu while Oikawa was paying his tab at the bar. “There you are! Leaving already?”

“I have a headache,” Oikawa snapped. His conflicted thoughts and worries about Ushijima easily flowed into the shape of irritation with Iwaizumi instead. “What do you care, anyway? I haven’t seen you all night.”

Iwaizumi frowned at him. Kazu was leaning his face on his shoulder, eyes closed and smiling blissfully. “So? I’m not your babysitter.”

“I never asked you to be!” Oikawa grabbed his card back as soon as the bartender was done with it and stalked out of the bar, ignoring Iwaizumi’s calls after him. 

Everything felt wrong: he didn’t want to see the easy, affectionate way that Iwaizumi and Kazu had with each other, not when everything in his own life felt tangled up in hard knots. Oikawa could feel his thoughts starting to whir, already picking apart Ushijima’s words tonight to analyze and decipher what they meant, already presenting him with some interesting conclusions. Oikawa didn’t want those conclusions and didn’t want to know how he could exploit this new information to his benefit, but he was thinking about it anyway. 

Tendou’s words came back to him: wanting to get closer to Ushijima without revealing himself. Without any risk. Without the kind of decency and honesty and bravery that Ushijima displayed without a second thought. Ushijima deserved someone who was just as decent, deserved one of the many fake perfect boyfriends who had messaged him in the past month, deserved the kind of good person that Oikawa could only ever pretend to be.

Fuck Tendou anyway. Fuck Ushiwaka, and most of all fuck himself.


	2. Chapter 2

For a while, Oikawa successfully avoided thinking about anything by throwing himself into volleyball. They had a tournament coming up soon--well, not in the immediate future, but close enough that he had justification for pushing his team and himself harder. He pulled many of the first and second years aside for 1-on-1 conversations on how to get them past whatever issues were giving them difficulty, he picked out a few people to practice specific skills with him outside of regular practice, and he requested more meetings with the coaches to work out a strategy for the upcoming season.

One advantage of being the captain for a university rather than a high school team was he received very little push-back on the increased intensity. What little grumbling could be heard was contradicted and drowned out by the insistent support of Iwaizumi and Ushijima.

Oikawa wasn’t surprised that Ushijima supported him in driving his team harder, but it did make him feel all the more guilty. And then he thought about Ushijima saying he’d prefer to be captain himself, and anger added to the guilt. Oikawa wanted to confront him about it, wanted to know if that was still how he felt, and he also wanted to avoid talking to Ushijima about anything personal ever again.

But at the same time he felt acutely the absence of all their online conversations. It was stupid, the way he missed it. He hadn’t been able to be himself when they’d talked, so why should he miss it? What was there to miss? 

Iwaizumi, of course, noticed that Oikawa was sulking and moping whenever they weren’t at practice or discussing the team. A couple days passed of Iwaizumi passive-aggressively frowning at him and Oikawa passive-aggressively refusing to ask what he was so concerned about. Then Oikawa finally snapped and snarled out, “What? What is it?” in response to Iwaizumi standing in his bedroom doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, glowering.

“Why don’t you tell me? You skipped dinner again today and it’s been days since I’ve seen you smile at anyone other than first years who need hand-holding.”

Oikawa thought about misdirecting, about picking yet another fight about Iwaizumi spending all his time with Kazu instead of him. But that might lead them back to the same underlying topic, anyway, so what was the point. He abandoned the textbook he’d been half-heartedly studying and fell back onto his bed with a groan.

“I’m fine! I just hate myself and I’m going to die alone.”

“Oh, good, so really manageable problems then.” The bed creaked as Iwaizumi sat on the edge, patting Oikawa’s shin consolingly. “Why is this stuff coming up for you now?”

Oikawa considered what he could tell Iwaizumi that wasn’t the truth or anything that would lead him to guessing the truth. “I think I might be interested in someone, but I messed things up with him before I realized I was interested, and now it’s too late.”

“Wait, seriously? I didn’t even know you were trying to date, I thought you were ignoring my good advice there. Who are you talking about?”

“No, I wasn’t trying to date him, I just--ugh, never mind.” Even this much honesty had been a terrible idea. 

“Sounds complicated,” Iwaizumi said, in a voice that meant he couldn’t fully sympathize unless Oikawa told him the whole story. 

Oikawa flopped his arm over his eyes, blocking out the room. “It’s nothing. I’m not going to do anything about it so it’s just something I need to move on from.” 

“Uh, if you say so.” The bed creaked again and now Iwaizumi was lying down next to him, shoulder to shoulder. They were silent for a while and it was nice, simple and familiar. Oikawa could pretend that they were kids again, or in jr. high or high school. Any time but here and now with his current mistakes. 

Naturally Iwaizumi ruined it. “If you want to move on, going on dates with other people would probably help with that.”

“Ugh, no.”

“I’m just saying. If nothing else it would be a distraction, right? Did you ever give OkCupid a try?”

Oikawa groaned. “Let’s talk about something else.”

Iwaizumi refused to talk about something else until Oikawa agreed to at least think about trying online dating again. And true to his word, Oikawa had the best intentions towards actually creating a real profile for himself. He filled out each section of the profile with answers that he thought were honest and genuine--as genuine as it was possible to be on an online dating profile. He answered the questions with his own opinions, preferences and experiences. He got a perverse sense of bitter satisfaction when he checked Ushijima's profile and found that when he did this as himself, they were only 75% compatible, a far lower match percentage than Ushijima had had with any of the other profiles Oikawa had created.

He got to the point of choosing photos for his profile and hesitated, and the hesitation turned into an extended pause, and the pause turned into minimizing the tab, closing his laptop and going for a walk instead.

He didn't want to finish. It wasn't about the photos themselves--Oikawa was very photogenic and had any number of handsome recent pictures to choose from. But putting his own face on a profile meant admitting to whoever might see it that he was putting himself out there, that he wanted to date someone, find someone, be with someone.

God, what if Ushijima came across his profile and messaged him, like he'd done on Tinder? That seemed like a real possibility, and it made Oikawa's stomach churn. If Ushijima asked him out for real then Oikawa would have to figure out whether or not he wanted him or if he was just obsessed because he was a creep. Also, then he'd know for sure that he'd spent the last month elaborately lying to someone who had feelings for _him,_ which made him pretty terrible no matter what way you looked at it.

Oikawa just wasn't ready to be direct yet, couldn't be, not with Ushijima and most likely not with anyone. He could probably keep a therapist happily employed for quite some time unpacking the reasons why, but correct analysis was the first step towards changing or, worse, being forced to change. Oikawa wasn't interested in that. He'd rather continue making self-destructive choices based on primal fears, thanks.

He got back to the apartment and back to his computer and removed any details from the profile that would have identified him as himself, although he kept in as much of his original answers as he could. He chose a random model that had some features similar to his own and added his pictures to the profile. He changed the username to something more anonymous.

He wasn’t actually trying for anything with this profile, he told himself. He didn’t have a goal in mind. It wasn’t like before. He was just going to talk to Ushijima in the closest guise he could get to his genuine self, and in the process maybe he’d figure some things out about himself and how he felt and what he should do about it. 

It was laughably pathetic that he needed a different persona just to talk to his teammate. Oikawa tried to carefully stow his self-awareness away in a box in a far corner of his mind, to be dealt with later if at all. 

This time, when his messages with Ushijima turned to volleyball Oikawa introduced himself as the cousin of one of Ushijima’s teammates, Oikawa Tooru. Oikawa Satoru had grown up in Miyagi, too, and now lived a couple of hours outside Tokyo, but visited the city regularly and recognized Ushijima from the few times he’d gone to watch his cousin play in high school tournaments.

Exchanging these messages felt different from the previous times, when Oikawa had always been thinking ahead, planning what to say to get Ushijima to react this way or that, figuring out how to stay in-character while also being seductive. Now he could say almost whatever he wanted--as long as he was careful to change any details that might be too identifying, he didn’t have to hide his own personality or circumstances behind a mask. His cousin Satoru had grown up in Oikawa’s town, knew Iwaizumi, was familiar enough with Tokyo from his visits. 

Oikawa hadn’t intended to give his fake cousin a sports background, but on their third day of messaging back and forth he watched his own traitorous hands bring up the subject of innate talent vs. hard work. He ended up confessing all these hard-won, painful lessons he’d learned about ambition and acceptance and talent and loss, memories that he kept locked tightly within and didn’t share much with anyone, only Iwa-chan and only because he’d been there for all of it. Oikawa was surprised to find how much he wanted to talk about it once he switched the sport from volleyball to baseball, and further surprised to find that Ushijima had thoughtful things to say in response. 

It was probably just because they were communicating via text. If Oikawa had started telling him such personal things face-to-face, surely Ushijima would have interrupted him, or bluntly disagreed, or looked at him with the blank coldness that Oikawa had seen at the end of each match he’d lost to Shiratorizawa since Jr. High. 

Ushijima was telling him things about himself, too. More than he’d told any of the other accounts Oikawa had created. Oikawa read about Ushijima’s father defending him for being left-handed when he was a child, and about how Ushijima had modeled his whole approach to volleyball after his father’s experiences and stories. Oikawa tried to recall all the times he’d previously heard Ushijima reference his father--had his face looked any less stony than usual, was his voice any less deep and calm when he talked about this person who had influenced him so much?

Once, just once, the subject of Oikawa came up, but for the first time this wasn’t because he’d been fishing for Ushijima’s opinions about him. They were talking about living in the country vs. living in Tokyo. When Ushijima listed the things in the city that had helped his homesickness, he listed his houseplants, the books that he’d kept from childhood, and _having people around that are also from Miyagi, like your cousin and Iwaizumi Hajime._

_Really? It’s interesting that you say that,_ Oikawa typed back immediately. _I thought you didn’t play on the same team as them in high school._

_That’s true, we didn’t. But they’re still people I have known for a long time. When I first started at this school I was alone, and I felt very lost in such a huge city. It was a comfort to see them around and play volleyball with them because I knew them already. They’ve been a connection to home and to my childhood._

There was a strange, constricted feeling in Oikawa’s throat. He had never before considered that when he looked at Ushijima, he was looking at years of history, a shared past, someone he’d grown up with as much as he’d grown up against. He felt immature knowing that Ushijima had come to this realization about them first.

_I love my cousin, but he can be such an asshole sometimes. Probably better to keep plants around if you need keepsakes from the country._

_Ha ha ha. We don’t always get along and he can be childish, but so can I. I’m glad he is on my team._

It was not, ‘I’m glad he is my captain,’ but it was more than Oikawa had expected. He caught himself grinning at his phone screen and bit his lip, putting his phone in his pocket and delaying his next response until later that evening.

They exchanged several messages a day most days, and Oikawa was startled to realize that this had been the case for more than two weeks now. Unlike all of Oikawa’s previous attempts, Ushijima had yet to politely end things. Oikawa wasn’t sure what accounted for the difference; it was possibly because Oikawa’s cousin didn’t live in Tokyo, so there was no assumption that all this talking was naturally leading up to a date, and Ushijima felt no obligation to communicate his unavailability before an in-person date could be suggested. Or maybe he liked talking to someone from back home, someone who made him feel nostalgic. 

One night Oikawa had fallen into step beside Ushijima and a couple of other teammates as they left the gym together after practice. Ushijima was not participating in the group’s casual conversation, which was not in itself unusual, but he seemed to be distracted by his phone; he was typing out a message and smiling. He finished typing and put his phone away, his smile growing wider as he looked up at the smoggy city sky and all the stars that light pollution made invisible. 

Oikawa pressed his palm to his phone through his pants pocket, wondering if it was just now lighting up with a new message, wondering if he could check it without arousing suspicion. Then Ushijima glanced his way and their eyes met, and the serene expression on Ushijima’s face grew tight. He looked away, and for a moment Oikawa’s chest seized with panic that he’d been caught staring, and that Ushijima now thought--something or other. 

But then Ushijima glanced back at him, color in his cheeks, and Oikawa realized that he was embarrassed, and that he wanted something.

Oikawa slowed his pace and let the other players walk in front of them. Ushijima cleared his throat.

“Oikawa. You have a cousin, Satoru.”

Oikawa looked at him and waited, but Ushijima seemed to be waiting for him to confirm. “Yes, that’s right. What about him?”

“Has he… ah, hm.” This was as close to flustered as Oikawa had ever seen Ushijima, and it was fascinating. He leaned in closer, peering at Ushijima from up close until Ushijima’s customary frown returned.

“Has he talked about me recently,” Ushijima finished gruffly.

Oikawa had briefly considered the possibility of a conversation like this when he’d first come up with the cousin idea, but that was weeks ago now, and in the time since he hadn’t been thinking much about the likelihood of Ushijima bringing it up. He didn’t exactly have a plan for how this should go.

But he’d be a terrible setter if he couldn’t strategize on the fly. “Huh… now that you mention it, he asked about you a few weeks ago. Just asked if my university’s ace was the same guy who had played against Seijoh in high school. He came to some of those tournaments when we were teenagers, so he remembered Shiratorizawa, I guess. Why?”

“Ah. Well… he and I have been talking lately.”

“Talking….?” Oikawa could be making this easier on Ushijima instead of feigning wide-eyed confusion, and perhaps if he hadn’t been compartmentalizing all guilt about this whole endeavor he would have been moved to show mercy. But Charitable Tooru was not currently in the building.

Ushijima licked his lips, his eyes darting around nervously. “We have been messaging each other on OkCupid.”

“Oh! Oh, you mean _talking._ ” 

“Yes,” said Ushijima, pained. “I know that Satoru does not live in Tokyo, but I have grown to like him. I…. what do you think about that?”

Flippant remarks and jokes about Ushijima dating his cousin had already formed in Oikawa’s head, but the direct question gave him pause, and any words in his mind dissipated like puffs of steam. He looked away, glancing at the trees lining the sidewalk up ahead, their leaves colorless in the dark. 

What did Oikawa think about this? Oikawa hadn’t been letting himself think about it, not really.

“I think you’re probably too good for him. He’s related to me, after all.”

Ah. Here was Charitable Tooru. Or maybe this was Self-Sabotaging Tooru; they could be awfully similar sometimes. 

Ushijima said nothing for a few moments, and Oikawa was too nervous to glance back and see his face, wasn’t sure he wanted to know how seriously Ushijima had taken Oikawa’s words. Of course it hadn’t been a joke, and of course Oikawa was too much of a selfish coward to warn Ushijima away with less subtlety.

“I’m surprised you think I’d be too good for anyone.”

A self-effacing joke in return? When Oikawa looked over there was a small, wry smile on Ushijima’s face. Oikawa smiled back.

“Aw, there are plenty of people I think you’re way too good for. Now, too boring is another story…”

Oikawa was pleased when Ushijima laughed, taking the joke in the spirit it was intended. “Of course. Am I too boring to date your cousin?”

“You don’t need my permission.”

“I’m not asking your permission. I suppose I just thought you should know.” Ushijima was stiff now, formal. It made it harder to divine what he was thinking and feeling, what he wanted. Oikawa squinted at him and Ushijima looked back, impassive. 

“Ah. Well, thanks for telling me. I hope you two continue to get along!” Oikawa gave his cheeriest smile, ignoring the way uncertainty and guilt and fear were rattling around his chest like errant bones.

“I hope that as well.” 

Ushijima’s face glinted and shifted in the lights from oncoming traffic, and for a moment Oikawa thought he looked sad. He was still looking at Oikawa, watching him. Oikawa carried their ongoing silence with each breath, filling his lungs with all the things he should be saying. 

***

It was an indication of Oikawa’s worsening mental and emotional state that even after their last conversation, it somehow still took him by surprise when Ushijima asked him out--asked _his cousin_ out, an important distinction.

_I have enjoyed talking to you so much these past few weeks. Would you be interested in meeting in person the next time you’re in Tokyo?_

Oikawa’s immediate reaction, much to his embarrassment, was a rush of shocked pleasure and excitement. And not just because he’d finally won at this absurd game he’d designed for himself, finally gotten Ushijima to go for one of his fake profiles. Only a very small part of him was feeling triumphant right now. Instead his whole body felt momentarily consumed by giddy warmth, his cells suddenly sparking with the elated confirmation of an infatuation returned. 

Then the true horror of his situation caught up with him.

The person Ushijima had requested a date with did not exist. Even if Oikawa had mostly been himself throughout their conversations, Ushijima didn’t realize who it was he’d fallen for, and if he did--if he knew Oikawa truly, not just as his teammate and captain but as the person who’d been deceiving him for a whole season now--it was inconceivable that he’d still be interested. 

Oikawa should confess. He should do it right now, should break character and tell Ushijima everything and hope that a few shreds of forgiveness could be granted. He should end this the way he should have ended it months ago. He should do the right thing.

He should not be already planning for how he could meet Ushijima in person in a datelike capacity without giving up his secret. He should not be typing out, _Yes, I’d like that! It just so happens I was planning on a visit next weekend. Will you be available then?_

The details fell into place effortlessly. Satoru would, of course, be staying with Oikawa, so Ushijima could come to Oikawa’s apartment to pick him up for their dinner date. Considering whose apartment it was, it wouldn’t be strange for Oikawa himself to answer the door and give the excuse that Satoru was running late but would be home in just a few minutes. He would be a good host and invite Ushijima in for tea while he waited, and they’d be able to talk. Oikawa would find a way to steer the conversation towards their growing friendship, or perhaps toward online dating, or perhaps toward their shared history, some topic which would hopefully allow him to come clean after giving a speech explaining why he was the way he was, or at least after driving the point home that his intentions, at least, were good.

He would tell Ushijima everything. Probably. Maybe.

***

By the time their agreed-upon date rolled around, Oikawa had been overthinking his whole life to such a degree that his entire week could possibly be considered an out-of-body experience. He woke up in the middle of the night on Friday and couldn't get back to sleep. Instead he just laid there staring up at his bedroom ceiling, fears and imagined conversations and worst case scenarios running through his brain so fast they couldn't be teased apart, so that each horrible thought flowed into the next like one long scream.

He grabbed his phone and sent a message to Ushijima, trying to type too quickly for his self-preservation instincts to catch up to what he was doing and question this. 

_This might seem like a really weird message from someone that you haven't even met in person yet, but I just need to say that I'm glad I got to know you these past few weeks. I really like you. The more we’ve talked the stronger my feelings for you have become. I don't know how tomorrow will go, or if you'll like me in person. But talking with you has been a special thing for me, and I won't forget your place in my heart, regardless of tomorrow's outcome. I don't mean to worry you, and you don't need to reply--you can tell me what you think in person if you like. I just had to get this off my chest._

It did not make him feel better, but it did help him sleep.

***

Iwaizumi was going to spend the night at Kazu’s place on Saturday, but unfortunately he left early in the afternoon, giving Oikawa far too many hours alone before dinner time to agonize and regret everything.

Their date was at 6pm; Ushijima rang the doorbell at 5:59. Oikawa answered in a t-shirt, jeans and house slippers, because of course he wasn’t dressed in preparation for a first date-- his plans for the evening consisted solely of studying at home while his cousin went out with his team’s ace. 

Ushijima, on the other hand, was wearing a button-down shirt (at least it had short sleeves) and nicer jeans, and loafers. He looked like he could be someone’s father. Oikawa was helplessly into it. This was going to be the worst night of his life.

“Ushiwaka-chan!” he declared in the entryway, loud and cheerful with all his internal turmoil buried deep. “How interesting to see you outside of practice. Satoru wanted me to communicate his profound apologies, he took the wrong train coming home from some errands, so he’s, ah, not actually home yet. But! He’ll probably be back any minute now, in the meantime why don’t you come in?”

Ushijima looked mildly overwhelmed already, and hesitated when Oikawa stepped aside and made a sweeping gesture to his empty dorm room. But then he said “Thank you, Oikawa” and walked in, and Oikawa could smell the faint scent of his cologne as he walked past. 

There was a futon and a packed travel bag in the corner of the living room, to add to the illusion that Oikawa was hosting a guest this weekend. Not that it mattered, because Oikawa would be telling the truth at some point tonight, but he hadn’t been able to resist setting up the details. 

He put on hot water for tea, and invited Ushijima to sit at his tiny living room table. “Sorry that I don’t have more to offer! Satoru only told me you were coming over once he realized he’d be late, so I didn’t have time to pick up any food or anything.”

“It’s fine. We’re supposed to go out for dinner, I wouldn’t want to ruin my appetite.” 

Ushijima sat at the table but he looked uncomfortable, which of course was only natural given the situation he’d walked into vs. the situation he must have expected, but it made Oikawa feel worse. His smile was starting to feel plasticky and he had too much energy. He fought the urge to putter uselessly around the kitchen and instead sat down with Ushijima while they waited for the water to boil.

“So! I suppose congratulations are in order. You and Satoru, you crazy kids are making it work!”

“This is just our first date.” Ushijima sounded terribly, horribly awkward and stiff, even by his usual standards. He was sitting straight upright with his hands in his lap, looking down at the table. Oikawa had to figure out a way to make this better. 

“Well, I’ve already had to come to terms with the possibility of you being a member of the family someday, and I don’t want to have gone through that effort for nothing, so I’m rooting for you.” Oikawa said it with a wink, but it had no relaxing effect. If anything, Ushijima just looked more miserable. Shit. Oikawa sighed.

“Waiting on a first date must suck, I know. I hate seeing a teammate in distress.” He reached over to pat Ushijima’s forearm consolingly, and Ushijima startled, his eyelashes fluttering as he looked up at Oikawa with wide eyes. “Talk to me, it’ll take your mind off the nerves. Tell me what you and my cousin have been discussing, has he told you more than you ever wanted to know about baseball?”

At last Ushijima cracked a smile. “He has mostly just told me about his experience and ambitions with the sport. I like hearing about it. We also talk about Miyagi, and college, our families and teammates. All the usual things you talk about when you’re getting to know someone.”

“That sounds nice. Here I had assumed that you two had just been bonding through sharing and comparing your least favorite things about me.” 

This got him an actual laugh, and things became less awkward as the conversation moved to other topics, primarily volleyball. Oikawa got up to pour them tea when the kettle whistled. It struck him as more than a little stupid that even through his anxiety, he was enjoying this--just having Ushijima over, spending time with him in his home, the two of them hanging out without the context of practice or their other teammates. 

Oikawa liked him. He liked him a lot. God, he was an asshole.

And he was running out of time. Very soon now it would start getting weird (well, weirder) how late his cousin was. Ushijima would get anxious again, and maybe wonder if he’d been stood up. If Oikawa was going to do… whatever it was he was going to do, he needed to do it soon.

But he couldn’t just come right out and admit everything, the ugly truth spilling out of him like a housecat spitting up a dead mouse onto its owner’s pillow. He’d have to work up to it. Somehow. 

“So the thing about my cousin,” Oikawa said slowly. He fixed his eyes on his tea mug, fingers tracing the rim. “And I promise I’m not saying this to start trouble between you two, or anything like that. But Satoru can have some issues with, ah, honesty? Not that he’s a bad person or malicious! But he….. lies sometimes. Maybe more than other people, I think. It might be a compulsion sort of thing.”

Oikawa dared to glance up at Ushijima and saw that a distinct crease had appeared between his eyebrows and seemed to be deepening. He looked quickly away. “I just thought you should know. In case that sort of thing is…” A dealbreaker. “In case you see things like that as black and white.” 

Ushijima did not answer immediately. He took a sip of his tea and then stared into his cup, expression unreadable. Oikawa felt like there were fire ants trying to crawl out of his lungs.

When Ushijima finally spoke his words were slow and measured. “Honesty has always been important to me. If someone was lying to me constantly that would be…. A concern. But I also believe that a good partnership with someone should mean that you consider the context of their actions. I suppose that means it’s not black and white for me.”

Before Oikawa could respond, Ushijima leaned forward intently. “I hope that eventually he feels comfortable telling me about the dishonesty issues himself. One of the things I like about him is how he is open about the things he sees as his faults. It makes me want to be open as well.”

Oikawa couldn’t help but stare a bit. That was maybe the longest string of non-volleyball-related words he’d ever heard Ushijima say at once. And apparently he wasn’t finished yet.

“There is so much that I like about your cousin. He’s very funny and smart and I just like the way he talks. He can make anything sound interesting. And even in our first conversations I found it was strangely easy for me to tell him things. As if I had this--this library of things in my mind that I was keeping to myself, and I never realized that he was the person I needed to say them to until we met.”

Ushijima stopped and leaned back in his chair with a flush on his cheeks. He seemed to realize how much he had just said and was now close-lipped, staring at the table’s edge. Oikawa wanted to say something to put him at ease. Or rather, he would get around to wanting that as soon as he was finished being shell-shocked.

“He’s, uh. He’s pretty lucky to have someone like you like him so much.”

Ushijima looked up, frowning. “I am lucky too. That’s what I was trying to say. Oikawa, do you… not like your cousin?”

Ouch. When had Ushiwaka gotten perceptive? “No, I just know him.”

“That…. Doesn’t sound good.”

“No, I--” Oikawa squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, trying to find his way back to clarity. “He’s a complicated guy. But I know he really likes you. He’s told me that much.” He opened his eyes, meeting Ushijima’s gaze head-on. “He’s told me that he likes your ambition and your drive, your confidence. He likes how deeply you care about things. He says it’s easy for him to open up to you, because he knows you’ll take everything he says seriously and be calm. And he likes that you tell him things that you won’t tell just anyone.”

They were still staring at each other and now it was Oikawa’s turn to sit there with his face flushed and his heart hammering. Ushijima’s mouth had fallen slightly open and he sat frozen, looking at Oikawa with confusion and surprise and something… something else. 

This would officially now be weird and inappropriate if Oikawa really were here just to politely host his friend until his friend’s date showed up. It was now or never. He sat up straighter and cleared his throat, breaking eye contact so that he could think clearly. “Ushijima, listen--”

The sound of the door opening was quickly followed by the sound of Iwaizumi’s heavy footsteps and then his voice, loud and grumpy and horrifyingly familiar. “Ugh, Kazu got food poisoning, can you believe it? And he doesn’t want anyone else around while he pukes, I guess. --uhhhh hey, Ushijima.”

“Hello,” Ushijima says, standing awkwardly. “I’m sorry for the intrusion, I am just here waiting for Satoru to get back.”

"Who?" Iwaizumi looked at Oikawa, not alarmed or mad yet, just confused, still trying to catch up to the surprise of someone else being here. He didn't realize the destruction he'd just caused with a single hapless word. Iwaizumi was the kind of friend who'd pull through for you when it really mattered, no matter how much he might disapprove of your bullshit; whether it was burying a body or going along with a lie, Oikawa could always count on him to help out in a crisis and leave the yelling for later.

So Oikawa knew that as he stared at Iwaizumi with his face frozen in a horrible parody of a hospitable smile, as the dread in the room thickened with each silent second that passed, Iwaizumi was figuring out that this was the kind of situation where he needed to lie for Oikawa and yell at him later.

"I mean--uh--" Iwaizumi tried, but it was too late.

"Oikawa's cousin? Staying with you for the weekend?" Ushijima spoke slowly, frowning back and forth between them until his gaze settled on Oikawa, waiting for some explanation, waiting for Oikawa to make it right, although Oikawa could tell from the set of his shoulders that some part of him already knew that things were very wrong.

"I--" Oikawa could still save this. He could explain that Iwaizumi didn't know Satoru was staying for the weekend because he was supposed to have been at Kazu's starting from yesterday and going through Monday, so Oikawa hadn't bothered to tell him. And maybe Iwaizumi had a nickname for Satoru that he'd used since they were all kids, and he and Oikawa only ever referred to him by the nickname so Iwaizumi occasionally forgot his real name. And maybe Oikawa could excuse himself to take an emergency call from Satoru, who was trapped all the way across the city because there had been a fire on his train line, and he definitely wouldn't be able to make it so he needed Oikawa to apologize to Ushijima for him and cancel the date.

Thirty seconds ago he had been ready to confess everything, but not like this, not with so little control. Every instinct he had was screaming at him to start talking, start lying, to take things over and dig deeper into his terrible choices.

He couldn't seem to make words come out of his mouth, and he wondered what kind of look was on his face.

"Oikawa," Ushijima said. "What is going on?"

"I don't have a cousin named Satoru. Please, wait, let me explain," Oikawa said, the words rushing out of his mouth as he stood up, as Ushijima's whole body went stiff as a board. "The person you've been messaging on OkCupid--it was me the whole time, but I--"

"No," Ushijima said. "That's not--that can't be true." 

Iwaizumi swore under his breath. Oikawa couldn't look at him, kept his eyes trained on Ushijima.

"I wanted to tell you. I was going to tell you, tonight. I wanted to stop lying, I wanted to just--talk to you as myself--"

"Why did you _start_ lying? Why--why do this in the first place?" Ushijima was looking between Oikawa and Iwaizumi in desperation, like he needed an escape route. Oikawa sympathized. He felt simultaneously far away from his body, like all this was happening to someone else, and horribly present, trapped in a moment in time with his panic being stretched taffy-like across this conversation.

"It started with other accounts." Oikawa rattled off his previous usernames, sicker by the second. He could feel Iwaizumi's stare burning into him but he couldn't look his way, couldn't face him. "I lied to you repeatedly, and I don't know why. I have no excuse. I wanted to see what it took to hold your interest. I was trying to figure you out."

"Figure me out? My--my _interest?_ We're teammates!"

Oikawa had never heard Ushijima raise his voice before. Had never seen Ushijima upset, not like this, not agitated enough that he was backing away from Oikawa and Iwaizumi like they were threats, not stopping until his back bumped the kitchen counter. "You could have asked me anything, you could have talked to me instead of--playing this game, this joke!"

"It wasn't a joke!" Oikawa took a couple of helpless steps forward, but stopped when Ushijima shrank back even with nowhere left to go. "I know how it sounds, but I. I was confused, and Ushijima--everything that I told you as my cousin was true, I was being myself in every one of those messages, especially--" His throat worked around empty air, words sticking like glass shards. He spat them out. "My feelings for you. I meant every word I said about how I feel for you, and... and what you've come to mean to me."

"Don't. Oikawa, you are..." Ushijima dragged a hand over his face, his fingers clenching in his hair. When he looked up, his eyes were bleak. "You are troubled. I have to go."

"Wait, please--" Oikawa moved to stop him as Ushijima went for the door, but Iwaizumi caught his arm, shaking his head minutely. Oikawa stilled and watched Ushijima leave, the door banging shut behind him.

For a few moments everything was quiet. Then Iwaizumi said, "Tooru, holy shit," and Oikawa burst into tears.

***

Iwaizumi didn't yell at him or hit him after Oikawa explained the whole story, but Oikawa suspected that this was because he was too concerned about him, genuinely worried, which was much worse. Oikawa hated the look Iwaizumi got on his face, like Oikawa was someone strange to him, someone unfathomable. Oikawa didn't want to be unfathomable; he wanted his actions to make rational sense, even though he knew they didn't.

"Fuck, I'm sorry," Iwaizumi said after a while. Oikawa's temples were throbbing after all his tears, and his mind felt empty and washed out, a post-storm valley. "I should have noticed more that this shit was going on with you. If I hadn't had my head so far up my own ass with Kazu, then maybe...."

Oikawa flapped a hand, tired. "Don't. It's not your fault that I'm--what was Ushijima's word? 'Troubled?'" He laughed, then bit his lip against laughing more. He didn't want to be hysterical.

"I'm sorry that I pushed you into online dating," Iwaizumi said in a gruff voice. Oikawa kicked him under the table where they sat.

"I just said, don't do that.”

"What are you going to do now?"

Oikawa sighed and let his head flop back so that he was staring up at the ceiling. He closed his eyes. He wanted to sleep for a week. He wanted a vacation from being himself. "I don't think there's anything I can do, really. Tonight went as terribly as it possibly could, but there was never any way it was going to go well. All in all I've done an excellent job of ruining any possible chance I might have had with him."

Iwaizumi stayed silent and did not contradict him, which made Oikawa feel worse but which was probably accurate to his situation. What was there to be done? Trying to offer any further explanation of his inexplicable actions would just be insulting to Ushijima. And if Ushijima didn't believe him about his feelings being real, or did not think that his feelings made up for his actions, then there was nothing more to be said.

"I can't believe that after all my nagging you to get out there and date new people, you end up falling for someone we've known since we were twelve."

It shocked another laugh out of Oikawa. "God, Iwa-chan. I can't believe how badly I fucked this up."

"Neither can I, honestly." Iwaizumi clapped him on the shoulder, then pulled him into a hug. Oikawa held him back, and they stayed like that for a long time, until Oikawa stumbled into his room and fell asleep as soon as he hit the pillow.

***

 

The first thing Oikawa did in the morning was give in to his most masochistic impulses and check OkCupid. Ushijima had deactivated his account, and unmatched Oikawa on Tinder as well. It was not surprising, nor was the sick twist in his stomach and the lump in his throat upon finding out.

Iwaizumi offered to go to the gym with him and practice to get his mind off things, but Oikawa declined. He didn't want to go anywhere or do anything that would make him think of Ushijima, and volleyball was number one on that list. Unfortunately Oikawa had texted him from pretty much every location on or near campus that he went to regularly, so there were very few places left to him without the association.

But if he stayed in his room all day he was going to drown in a puddle of his own tears and leave Iwaizumi without a best friend and roommate. He had to do something, he couldn't stand himself at this level of pathetic. He chose a bookstore/coffee shop all the way across the city, a 40 minute train ride away.

He'd never been here before but of course that didn't really help; he thought about Ushijima regardless, his mind helpfully playing back the events of last night while Oikawa stared at the spines of new hardcover books without reading the titles.

All those heartfelt things that Ushijima had said about why he liked Satoru. How he found him smart and funny, how he liked the way he talked. How he even liked all the messy faults Oikawa had told him about. He hadn't liked any of the other people Oikawa had pretended to be, not half as much.

If Oikawa had approached him without guise from the beginning, had been himself from the beginning, maybe Ushijima would still have found all those things likable.

That was a pretty terrible thought to have, but it was also a bit energizing. Oikawa knew, at least, that Ushijima had the potential to like him even when all they had were words to exchange. And considering his initial Tinder message and how earnestly he'd tried to apologize for his past actions that night at the bar, maybe he had even liked Oikawa in the flesh and blood, before all the messages from Satoru.

Was it so impossible that he might like Oikawa enough to forgive him for all his lies and manipulation? Well--it probably, almost certainly was impossible, but maybe Oikawa cared enough about that small chance that it was worth trying to do something about it.

He spent the rest of the day scheming at the bookstore's coffee shop. By the time the sun was going down, he had what he hoped was a pretty solid plan.

On the way back to campus he stopped by a few stores, and went to Ushijima's dormitory before his own. He debated whether to just leave on the doorstep the plastic tubs, soil, seedlings and the instructions he'd printed out about how to keep a vegetable garden in a cramped apartment, or if he should ring the doorbell and try to explain the gift to Ushijima.

He badly wanted to just leave the items and flee and avoid a conversation that was sure to be awful. But he also figured that if this was going to work, he needed to stop giving in to the option that he preferred just because it was easier, and allowed him to retain more control.

He rang the doorbell. When Ushijima answered, his face clouded over immediately. Oikawa half-expected the door to be slammed in his face, but of course Ushijima was too polite for that.

"Hi," Oikawa said, trying to sound calmer than he felt. "I brought you, um, all this."

Oikawa watched as Ushijima looked down at the supplies, picking up the instructions that Oikawa had tucked into one of the bins. He read enough of the paper to see what it was, then looked back at Oikawa.

"Why?"

Oikawa took a deep breath and smiled. He hoped the smile seemed genuine. "It's my apology. Part of it, anyway. If you'll allow me to, I would like to keep giving you things, and doing things for you. To, ah, prove to you that I care. In the hopes of a second chance."

Every single word sounded flimsy and pathetic when Oikawa said them out loud. Ushijima didn't reply, instead crouching down to go through the seedlings, to read the label on the bag of soil. All Oikawa had to go off of was the top of his head.

He tried again. Time to be as forthright about his intentions as possible. "If you want me to keep apologizing or explaining myself, I can. But I thought.... well, I thought that maybe you wouldn't want any more words from me, considering that my words have been the problem this whole time. I want to make it up to you with my actions. No more words, not until you want them from me again."

For several long moments, Ushijima was motionless. Then he stood up again, saying, "You're very perceptive."

But it was not a compliment: his voice was angry, each word cold and clipped. "You can always figure out what to say or do to get what you want from someone. That's what allowed you to fool me for so long."

Oikawa shrank back, speechless at first. There was nothing he could say to contradict Ushijima. He was right. He'd cut right through all of Oikawa's hopes and good intentions and stripped him bare, exposing the core of him to the light like an ant under a glass.

And worse, Oikawa couldn't defend himself by arguing--if he managed to convince, it would just be proving Ushijima's point. He swallowed hard.

"I know. And I’m sorry. But I can use those powers for good, too. Remember what you said about our conversations, how you liked talking to me and found it easy to tell me things? I liked listening to you, I liked it when you would tell me about a problem you were having so I could figure out the right thing to say to make you feel better.”

Something in Ushijima’s eyes seemed to go soft and sad, but his mouth twisted. “Goodnight, Oikawa.” 

And now he did shut the door in Oikawa’s face. 

***

The next time Oikawa saw Ushijima was at volleyball practice. He gave no sign that he’d had a rough weekend, or that he was upset with Oikawa. He played just as brilliantly as ever, remained courteous and professional, and spiked every ball Oikawa set for him. He did not seem to be out of sync with Oikawa’s plays, and listened when Oikawa spoke to him as the team’s captain.

He said nothing to Oikawa when he wasn’t required to for the sake of the practice, but then, there had been plenty of practices where neither of them initiated conversation with the other. Certainly no one who didn’t know what was going on would guess that his behavior was particularly unfriendly.

Oikawa had to call on every inner reserve of perseverance and focus to get through practice without letting the quality of his play be affected, and by the end of it he still felt below his best. He knew there were cracks in his composure, too, because when practice was over and they were all heading into the showers one of the other setters, a second-year, asked him if he was okay. Was it the stress of finals that was getting to him?

Oikawa forced a smile and accepted the excuse handed to him. “Yes, I procrastinated too much last week and now I’m paying for it. I’m a bit sleep-deprived, but I should be in better shape after the next few days.”

The setter squeezed his shoulder. “Hang in there, man. I know how much you care about that beauty sleep.”

“I need less of that than most, being naturally blessed,” Oikawa said with a wink, and the setter laughed and shook his head and went on ahead into the showers.

Ushijima was in earshot. Oikawa wondered what he thought of him lying so easily. Did it reinforce his distrust of Oikawa? He could have tried to be more honest, could have admitted to his teammate that he was having a hard time because of his personal life. But perhaps Ushijima would have heard that and guessed (correctly) that Oikawa was only allowing himself to be vulnerable as a display, a tactic to try and win Ushijima back. 

A dull pain throbbed behind his eyelids. This was too much--Oikawa couldn’t second- and third-guess every little social interaction now, wondering if every choice he made confirmed Ushijima’s negative perception of his character. He wouldn’t be able to function. 

And it was pointless, anyhow: he couldn’t magically transform into someone who didn’t calculate people the way he did, and even if he could, he probably didn’t want to. As much as he liked Ushijima and as much as his own recent behavior had horrified him, Oikawa wouldn’t trade even the worst parts of himself for a simpler personality.

But still, he hoped for forgiveness. And he missed Ushijima, missed their conversations and the way he had felt when his phone lit up with a new message. He missed all those times he’d glanced at Ushijima during practice or some other excursion to find that Ushijima was already looking his way. He missed the passion that he’d heard in Ushijima’s voice when he’d told Oikawa all the things he liked about him. 

That night Oikawa went out and bought the cheesiest greeting card he could find. They didn’t have any cards for the occasion of needing to apologize for deeply, cruelly wronging someone--the closest he could find was a card expressing his regrets for missing an important event. He crossed out the words about the event and scribbled ‘for being an asshole’ instead, and selected a smaller card expressing a cheesy valentine’s day sentiment and tucked it inside the apology card. After a brief internal debate he doodled on the sappy card, drawing hearts and a silly version of his face and then a version of his face with heart eyes. 

He also got a small bouquet of flowers and a box of expensive tea, and left the whole package on Ushijima’s doorstep for him to discover in the morning. He had no idea how the cheesy gesture would go over. He felt cold and hollowed out on the walk between Ushijima’s dormitory and his own, like he’d reached the limits of his capacity to worry or stress or berate himself. All that was left was a bone-deep longing, like he’d mistakenly left an important piece of himself somewhere and was no longer quite whole.

***

The next morning he got a text from Ushijima. _Thank you for the gifts._ Oikawa waited, but that was it, that was apparently all he had to say. Probably Ushijima thought it was bad manners to not acknowledge a gift, regardless of his feelings on the giver.

Oikawa texted back, _You’re welcome._

He wanted to say more, but he felt tongue-tied. Ushijima reaching out seemed like a hopeful sign, even if it was out of obligation, and he couldn’t waste this opportunity. But he couldn’t decide on what to say, struggled to summarize all his remorse and hopes and yearning into a text message. So he just followed up with, _I miss you a lot. Can we please talk?_

He felt shaky and scared after he hit send. It felt viscerally wrong to be so direct and serious and open. He didn’t know what he was doing.

Ushijima did not respond. As the minutes and then hours passed, it was all Oikawa could do to drag himself to his classes and go through the motions of the day, and he hated how he kept glancing at his phone every few seconds even long after it became apparent that no reply was coming. 

They had no practice that evening, but Oikawa went to the gym anyway, practicing serves until his hands felt bruised and then forcing himself through sprint drills until his lungs were on fire. When he was finally finished, Ushijima was waiting for him outside.

“Oikawa, good evening.” Ushijima greeted him without a smile, his eyes sweeping once up Oikawa’s body before he glanced away. Oikawa wanted to die of mortification; the one time he skipped showering at the gym and allowed himself to be out in public red-faced and drenched in sweat, and this happens. Obviously Ushijima had seen him like this before, but usually they were both at the same level of exertion and grossness. Ushijima was the opposite of gross right now. 

Oikawa let his gym bag thud heavily to the ground. “Did you come to use the gym? I wasn’t…. Expecting to run into anyone else from the team.”

“I came to talk to you.”

Oikawa squeezed his eyes shut and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his t-shirt, the gesture giving him a few precious seconds to swallow down panic and try to think. He wanted to talk but he hadn’t yet figured out what he should say and didn’t feel ready. He hadn’t expected a conversation to just be sprung on him like this and his impulse was to find a way to get out of it, to regroup and come back to this when he felt like he had more than two braincells to rub together.

But this was it, this was the chance Ushijima was giving him. Oikawa couldn’t demand that it happen on his terms only. 

God, he must smell _terrible_ right now. What a nightmare.

“Okay, let’s talk. Where shall we go? I hope you weren’t thinking a cafe or something, I’m not exactly fit for public consumption at the moment.”

Ushijima led him to a secluded bench beneath some cherry trees, and Oikawa wondered how many other college students had broken up or gotten together right here. He wondered if anyone had begged forgiveness here who’d fucked up quite as magnificently as he had.

Neither of them said anything at first. Oikawa worried that once he started talking, he wouldn’t be able to stop, and it would just be excuse after excuse after tearful explanation until Ushijima left in disgust. But this silence was pretty unbearable, too, and he was on the verge of opening his mouth to let god-knows-what spill out when Ushijima spoke first.

“I have been trying to understand your behavior,” he said. “You claimed that you have real feelings for me, but months ago when I asked if you were interested in dating, you said no.”

Oikawa gripped the edge of the bench and stared resolutely ahead at the trees and the courtyard beyond. “Yes, well. I wasn’t at the time.”

“But you messaged me under the guise of a fake profile not long after that.”

Dammit. Oikawa imagined being strapped to an operating table, about to involuntarily undergo a painful and invasive surgical procedure. “Yeah. It was…. It was an impulse, I don’t know. I had been thinking about you ever since we matched on Tinder and then I found your OkCupid profile and you were just--” Fascinating. You were fascinating. “It made me curious about what kind of person would be right for you, and I wanted to see if I could come up with your perfect match. So I did and I messaged you, but you weren’t interested in the person I’d come up with. So then it was a challenge.”

His stomach was tied up in painful knots and he had to fight the urge to physically flee. The only silver lining to this conversation was that because Oikawa was already sweaty, any additional panic sweat couldn’t make him look or smell any worse. 

“A challenge,” Ushijima echoed. Oikawa knew how terrible that must sound, but, well, he'd been terrible. It couldn’t be that much of an additional shock that his motives had never been pure. 

“Oikawa….” When Oikawa looked his way, Ushijima was staring at him with intent, somehow managing to look even more serious than his usual. “Are you obsessed with me?”

Oikawa blinked. He wanted to laugh, not because the question was ridiculous, but because it was horrifyingly not. God, in high school he had always complained about stupid Ushiwaka being obsessed with _him_. And now here they were. 

“I’ve had complicated feelings about you for a long time,” he said. 

Ushijima frowned. “That’s not a no.”

Oikawa groaned and slumped over with his elbows on his knees, clenching his hands into fists in his hair. “I don’t know! I obviously can’t claim that my feelings about you are entirely healthy, can I? For years I thought I hated you, and you know I’ve mostly been rude to you even now that we’re teammates, and now…. And now I _like_ you, I like you so much and I don’t know what to do with that and I don’t really expect that you do, either.”

To Oikawa’s horror, the last few words came out thick and choked as tears threatened to prickle behind his eyes. He jerked when he felt Ushijima’s hand on his shoulder, and turned to face him with his mouth already open to say more, probably something defensive and awful this time, but stopped when Ushijima kissed him.

Oikawa felt the warmth of Ushijima’s lips against his for several beats, long enough for his brain to switch gears from furious hysteria to confusion to excitement. He kissed back, but Ushijima pulled away before the kiss could deepen.

“What--” Oikawa felt dazed and slow, like he’d perhaps fried a circuit from experiencing too many different intense emotions in too short a period of time. “What was that?”

Ushijima’s features were soft and tinged blue in the low light offered by the campus streetlamps, and his eyelashes seemed so long when he glanced away. “It occurred to me that we’ve never been at all physical with each other. Any further debate would be pointless if we turned out not to be, ah, compatible. In that way.”

“I’m compatible. I mean, I feel compatible. With you. I liked that.” Oikawa shut his mouth and squeezed his lips together, god, he was babbling. He wanted to kiss Ushijima again. He wanted Ushijima to kiss him again.

“I liked it too.” When Ushijima met his eyes again, Oikawa felt his breath hitch. He smiled despite himself.

“You’re so logical. What should our next step be, then? I could continue doing a very bad job of answering your questions, or we could continue testing physical compatibility.”

Oikawa figured that there was a good chance that teasing at this juncture would get him kicked to the curb, but instead Ushijima said “Mm” and his eyes flickered down to Oikawa’s mouth. 

***

“We should really do this again when I’m not covered in sweat,” Oikawa said, after making out for… he had no idea how long they’d been making out. His hand was under Ushijima’s shirt and Ushijima had his hair in a tight grip, tilting Oikawa’s head back to suck on his neck. 

“I don’t mind,” Ushijima said. His nose nudged Oikawa’s collarbone, and Oikawa shivered.

“You didn’t disagree with doing this again. That’s admissible in a court of law, you know.”

Now Ushijima pulled back enough to look at him, his eyes searching Oikawa’s face. Oikawa swallowed but didn’t look away.

“I can buy you dinner first,” he said quietly. “We can go on a real date. What do you say?”

“I think a date would be a good start,” Ushijima said. His fingers, still in Oikawa’s hair, stroked down the nape of his neck before he took his hand back. “Hopefully my date won’t stand me up this time, due to being non-existent.”

The joke was so unexpected that it took Oikawa several seconds to realize it _was_ a joke. He gawked for a while and then laughed nervously. “No one’s getting stood up! It will be a normal date, I swear. I’ll be 100% honest and forthright and sincere. No manipulation or scheming or anything like that, I won’t even be cute or charming.”

Ushijima smiled and ducked his head. “You can be cute and charming.”

“Well, good. I don’t have much else going for me.”

That got him a real laugh, and then Ushijima pulled him in to kiss him on the forehead, briefly, making Oikawa’s heart flutter. Then he stood up. “Goodnight, Oikawa. We can go out on Saturday.”

Oikawa took his time walking home. The sweat drying on his skin sharpened the wind and his jacket was too thin, but he felt a shaky kind of optimism, and the cold didn’t seem so bad.

Maybe Saturday wouldn't go well. Maybe Oikawa would continue to screw things up, and prove himself incapable of being with Ushijima without overcomplicating everything. That seemed just as likely as any alternative, but at least Ushijima seemed to like kissing him.

And Ushijima didn't mind it if he was cute and charming, even if those qualities were the flip side of more twisted personality traits. If all this had a silver lining, it was that Oikawa had now displayed more of his worst flaws than he ever intended, and somehow he'd been given a second chance anyway. For better or worse, there was no more hiding now. 

Oikawa grinned to himself and touched his thumb to his bottom lip, where Ushijima had bitten him a couple of times. For the better. Definitely for the better.


End file.
